


Subject 3

by Moss_Flowers



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: #handplates, Angst, Death, Gen, guys seriously this is dark af, horrible experiments, human soul extraction, there is no happy ending stop reading, zarla's au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 10:07:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5493320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moss_Flowers/pseuds/Moss_Flowers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dr. Gaster does science on a human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Subject 3

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zarla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zarla/gifts).



> Inspired by Zarla's #handplates AU. You should absolutely read those first. (I mean all of them, not just the first one.) 
> 
> http://zarla.deviantart.com/art/Best-not-to-look-into-it-575682313

“BROTHER... DID YOU SEE IT?”  
“hmm?”  
"I THOUGHT I SAW... WELL, IT WAS A FLICKER OF _PURPLE._ "  
“… no, no I didn’t. did you catch anything else about it?”  
“NOT REALLY, BUT THIS IS NEW, RIGHT?”  
“yeah… wonder what it could be?”  
“SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING GOOD!”  
“…”  
“S?”  
“sure bro. sure. something new.” 

 

O.o.0.o.O

 

You awaken trapped, strapped at ankles and wrists, knees and elbows, even your head is immobile. The leather straps are pleasantly warm in comparison with the icy table, and you squint your eyes against the glare of the fluorescent lighting. The ceiling tiles above you are an unfortunately ugly shade of green, and the air has the sterile, chemical smell of a hospital or a lab. 

You hear movement just out of your range of vision, and a monster moves to stand above you. You shudder a little, even though the labcoat-clad skeleton is dispassionately eyeing some sort of paperwork on a clipboard, marking things with a pen. It’s rude to judge someone you just met based on appearance, but something about this man seems cruel, and you want nothing more than to avoid any sort of contact with him. Unfortunately, strapped as you are, that isn’t an option. 

The last thing you remember is slipping off a wobbly walkway in Waterfall. That explains the throbbing in your arm, and with the way you can’t remember impact or how you got here, you’re guessing some sort of head injury as well. Is this a hospital? Did some kind soul bring you here for treatment?

You look up at what must be your doctor with wide, hopeful eyes. Occasionally his hands flicker around him, tracing strange patterns in the air, and while you’ve never learned any sign language you figure that’s what he’s doing. 

Finally he seems to finish whatever he’s writing and looks at you with an intense gaze that seems to pass right through you. You suppress a shudder, managing a shaky smile. Should you say something? What? He waves his hands over you assertively, and your smile turns strained. You don’t understand him. His expression turns from cold and calculating to exasperated, and you can hear him walking away. You would turn your head to watch him, but it’s immobilized by a strap, and you don’t want to fight it too much if you do have a bad head injury. 

You think that he must be a doctor because of his _excellent_ bedside manner, but keep your snark to yourself. Not everyone is good in social situations, and you’re sure he has other qualities that make him good at what he does. It’s rude to judge someone you just met based on first impressions. 

After a long moment he returns, and you are surprised by a soft blue glow in his eyes. Literally, before where there were white magic pinpricks that you assumed counted for pupils in this strange magical land there are now light blue circles that glow outwards. It’s kind of creepy. 

Out of the corner of your eye, almost out of your range of vision, you catch a glimpse of a much shorter skeleton lit by the same blue glow. Oh! The doctor brought his assistant to interpret for him! You smile at the new person, relaxing. You can’t discern the expression in his eyes, but the wide grin on his face reassures you. 

The doctor signs, and his assistant speaks, and the terror that has been present since you fell Underground returns in full force. The white-magic eye-pupils on the shorter skeleton have completely disappeared, and he’s speaking but his _face ___isn’t _moving,_ in this light his smile is a creepy grimace as it’s clearly fixed on his face. Hurriedly you turn to look back at your doctor.

“Subject three will remain still for initial readings.” 

“Uh, what sort of readings?” 

“The subject will hold still for the electromagnetic radiation to give us a clear image." 

“Is… is that an x-ray?” 

“Yes.” 

“Oh, ok. Sure, I’ll hold still! And my name’s Abby, what’s yours?” 

There is awkward silence for a moment, before, in a somewhat less detached tone, you hear, “I’m 1-S, and this is the Dr.” The Dr. looks over at the shorter skeleton in surprise, and you realize that the Dr. didn’t sign, this is the first time the grinning monster has addressed you directly. 

“Oh! Nice to meet you!” you chirp automatically. You’re relieved that 1-S has his magic pupil things back, and is looking at you with some degree of concern. You self-consciously hope you’re not bleeding all over the shiny equipment. 

Without another word, the Dr. sweeps out of your line of sight, followed shortly by 1-S. As he’s leaving, 1-S pauses to give your hand a reassuring squeeze. His bones are cold, but it’s the thought that counts, right? He looks like he might be about to say something else when the blue glow lighting his face intensifies, and his expression turns pained as he jerks out of your line-of-sight. That was… weird. You feel like there’s something going on here you’re not picking up on. 

You hear the door click as they leave, and a minute or two later a sciency-looking box detaches from the ceiling and gets uncomfortably close to your face. You would close your eyes and turn your head away, but you’re strapped in and you did promise to stay still. You just close your eyes and relax, and let the humming box do whatever it’s programmed to do. 

It’s not long before you fall asleep. 

 

O.o.0.o.O

 

The full-body x-ray finished developing almost 45 minutes ago, and Dr. Gaster is taking a moment to review the scans. Yes. That is what he is doing. He is absolutely not stalling to prevent the inevitable. 1-S has been quiet during the process, which he appreciates. 2-P would undoubtedly fill the room with his unintelligent ramblings, and this is difficult enough as is. 

Finally, Dr. Gaster turns away from the lightbox and opens a rather dusty and neglected cabinet full of intravenous drugs, snagging the sealed jar of anesthetic. Opening a drawer of sterile lab-grade syringes, he pulls out one large enough to get the job done, quickly filling it with the liquid. 

1-S interrupts, “doc, uh, I think that’s too much.” 

He eyes 1-S coldly, placing down the syringe to sign, “It is not.” dismissively. Good, nary a tremble. Not that a professional such as Dr. Gaster would tremble at the thought of this, oh no. 

1-S looks at him in a way that makes him feel distinctly uncomfortable, but he has long passed the point where he allowed himself to consider the opinion of test subjects, or so he tells himself. 

Soul canister in one hand, syringe in the other, Dr. Gaster reenters the x-ray chamber, where the human child is still peacefully asleep. Good. Best to finish this with a minimum of struggle and stress to the patient. 

No, test subject. 

That’s all it is. A test subject.

A twitch of magic, and the soul erupts, brilliantly blinding purple light filling the room. Another twitch of magic, and the now-blue soul drops gently and safely into the soul capsule. 

As Dr. Gaster raises the syringe, he is surprised to be blocked by a hand on his arm. He can feel the tremble in it, knows that his first creation is too weak to truly stop him, and yet he hesitates. 

“doc, doc no, she's just a child.” 1-S pleads, fear in his eyes. 

He should have put the subject back in its cage with the other one. He should do that now, actually. He doesn’t know why he responds. 

“I must. For… for science.” It was because the skeleton still had hold of his arm. There is no other reason he would hesitate, he is absolutely not trembling or stalling, nope, Dr. Wing-Dings “Professional” Gaster here. 

To prove it, he clenches his magic at 1-S, holding him aloft in the air, firm pressure all around him to prevent him from moving or speaking. With careful precision, he locates a pale-blue vein beneath the translucence of the subject’s arm and steadily injects the intravenous anesthetic. 

The human does not wake. Good. 

A minute later, the human has stopped breathing, and a foul stench fills the lab. Dr. Gaster frowns, he had forgotten that human corpses didn’t have the courtesy to clean up after themselves, and had a tendency to eject whatever foul matter lurked in the depths of their digestive systems upon death. Disgusting. 

He has no use for most of the organic matter, but perhaps it would be nice to take a look at the skeleton under the flesh… He sets about cleaning up the table, and deposits the body in a vat of lye. 

What else is there to… oh. Subject 1-S is still restrained in the corner. Dr. Gaster calmly floats it back to its chamber, making idle chitchat. Yes. The sort of nonsense one would utter around, say, lab mice, or particularly obstinate lab equipment. There is no way someone as professional as Dr. Gaster would need to justify his moral choices to a mere test subject.

None whatsoever. 

 

Dr. Gaster needs a drink.

 

O.o.0.o.O

 

2-P has been quietly soothing his brother for hours now. Though 1-S didn’t come back with any physical injuries, the black pits of his eyes and the fact that he didn’t say anything at all, even one of his terrible jokes, tells 2-P that something really bad happened outside their cell. In times like this, 2-P has found that the best thing to do is just be there for his brother and wait for him to be ready on his own. 

His patience is rewarded. 

“… bro.”

“YES, BROTHER?” 

“what if… there was a way. a way to get out of here, but it meant we did something bad. something really bad. would it be worth it?” 

1-P gives his brother a curious glance. Somehow the question doesn’t seem as hypothetical as it should. 

"I THINK... IT DEPENDS ON THE THING. OF COURSE I WANT TO GET OUT! BUT THERE ARE SOME THINGS... EVEN WITH A GOOD REASON, THAT JUST SHOULDN'T BE DONE."

Hopefully that’s good enough for his brother. From this angle he can’t see 1-S’ face, but he can always tell when his brother is thinking very hard, and this is one of those times. 

“yeah. yeah, ok.” 

2-P smiles, pleased to have answered the question correctly. His brother is back! Perhaps it is time for a change of topic? 

“BROTHER, I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THE PURPLE.”

“… oh?”

Uh-oh, seems like maybe a change in topic wasn’t such a good idea. Well, no help for it now. 2-P decides to plunge on ahead anyway.

“I HAVE DECIDED THAT IT SEEMS LIKE A VERY FRIENDLY COLOR!” 

1-S is quiet for a long time. 2-P eyes him worriedly, prodding, “BROTHER?” 

“yeah. yeah, it is.” 

"BROTHER! IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU KNOW MORE THAN YOU ARE TELLING! DID YOU SEE THE PURPLE?" 

What can he say? 

“yeah, i did see it. some chemical thing the dr. was working on. i think that experiment’s over now, though.”

“AWW. I WANTED TO SEE IT!” 

1-S doesn’t answer, only shifts closer to hug 2-P tighter. 2-P is alarmed by the wetness leaking from 1-S’ empty eyesockets. 

“BROTHER?” 

It’s clear that whatever happened today, it has something to do with the purple. 2-P quietly revises his opinion of it. Sure, 1-S said it was friendly, but if it has this effect on his brother it can’t be a good thing. 

It is a long time before they drift off to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> This AU has been in my head far too often as of late, and I'm sorry I've now inflicted it upon all of you. 
> 
> I thought about drawing it out, thought about having Dr. G do more experiments, thought about writing fluff friendship stuff between the skelebros and the human, but... I couldn't do it. Couldn't write that little girl going through months and months of the same treatments Sans and Pap have to endure. 
> 
> So she got a quick trip to the vet instead. It's not better, not really, but when I think about what must have happened to those souls, the souls of children, lost and scared and confused in a land where everyone they came across tried to kill them... their last moments were filled with blood and pain and terror.
> 
> We all know the end of the story. We all know that, even in the best timelines, by the time Frisk gets there to save everyone, 7 children are already dead. 
> 
> Dr. G knew she had to die, and gave her the best death he could. Maybe, in his darkest moments... he can even admit it wasn't just for science.


End file.
